Cinema and architecture, in Avilés

From July 15 to 19, Avilés will host the second edition of the International Film and Architecture Festival. Brazil will be the guest country in this edition.

The second edition of the Avilés International Film and Architecture Festival (FicArQ) starts next July 15. Four days of films, conferences and round tables to celebrate the meeting points between cinema and architecture. With the Óscar Niemeyer center as the basis of the programming, FicArq 2014 reviews some of the film proposals on architecture of recent months and opens a window from the north of Spain to some of the premieres that are about to hit the theaters. Avilés, once again, is a city that wants to talk about building cinema.

The second edition of the festival aims to be a celebration of the power of transformation. As its organizers explain, both architecture and cinema, the two axes of the festival, have throughout history been tools capable of promoting large and small social, vital, economic, environmental transformations... and it was time to pay tribute to their potential.

Among other titles, FicArq 2014 will show the new film from the acclaimed director of Once, Begin Again, with Keira Knightley and Marc Ruffalo, and the comedy of the year in Argentina, Lionheart, in addition to two long-awaited European premieres: the German Destino Marrakech, by Caroline Link, Oscar for best foreign film for A place in Africa; and the Italian I travel alone. The Canadian completes the selection The Great Seduction, starring Brendan Gleeson.

In the film section dedicated to architecture, the documentary stands out that narrates the titanic process of reform and expansion of the RijksMuseum, in Amsterdam, projected by the Sevillian architects Cruz y Ortiz, who will present this film at FicArq 2014; and the work on The Sketch conducted by its own director and Puente winner of the festival, Richard Levene, who will also star in another of the conferences. In addition, documentary films on current issues, such as the real estate bubble, and on key figures in architecture such as the Argentine Amancio Williams, the American photographer and author of some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, Julius Schullman.

The program is completed with Arquipeques, an architecture workshop for the little ones; and a classic film series – The cinema we love– which, in this edition, is dedicated to German expressionism. They will be projected Murnau's Nosferatu; El Gabinete del Doctor Caligari, by Robert Wiene; y The Vampire of Düsseldorf, by Lang. Finally, FicArq pays tribute to the filmography of Brazil, the guest country, with some of its most successful films of recent years, such as City of God, Elite Troop y The wolf behind the door, in addition to works that review the career of two leading Brazilian architects: Mendes da Rocha and Lina Bo Bardi.